The Legacy of Varden (2019)
There and Back Again
Though I don’t do many these days, private commissions usually work like this: basically, commissioning me to paint you something, same as an illustration client would. A particular landscape, a fantasy scene, a Hearts for Hardware piece I haven’t yet done (the main category I’ll still do): all of these can and have been privately commissioned in the past. My monthly artist proof commissions are private commissions of the smallest kinds.
There is another category of private commissions, which is of the, “Paint me and/or my (pet)” variety. Those are trickier and I’m more hesitant in accepting them. Primarily, it’s that anything with a portrait is asking for trouble: even Sargent and Rembrandt had sitters fume over portrayals of them from time to time.
Additionally, any work that is too specific to an individual finds itself a black hole of time; while the work might be worthwhile, unless it is strict formal portraiture, there is a good chance that it won’t fit into my larger bodies of work, won’t make a portfolio piece and so is carving out a slot of my calendar for the pay but no further use. I might show it initially but it’ll sort of disappear after that.
Certainly, one thing artists value is accumulating art they can use in various ways over their careers. Like here at Art of the Day.
So when I was asked about doing a private commission that would be of not one but about a dozen individuals, I proceeded with the conversation per normal, but figured that it was not going to work out. Usually, I’m right with these predictions. In this case, the collector was open to making it work. The portrayal would be of himself, his soon-to-be-wife, and nearly an entire group of friends who had formed a Live-action Role Playing group in years past.
